INDEFENSIBLE

Author: Pamela Callow ISBN: 9780778329220 1/2011 SUSPENSE Publisher: MIRA

When Elise Vanderzell plummets from her bedroom balcony one gorgeous summer night, her children awaken to a nightmare. Their mother is dead. Their father is charged with her murder. Lawyer Kate Lange knows all about nightmares. She's survived the darkest period of her troubled life and the wounds are still raw. Now she's been handed a case that seems utterly unwinnable: defending her boss, high-profile lawyer Randall Barrett. A prosecutor's dream suspect, Randall is a man who was cuckolded by his ex-wife. A man who could not control his temper. A man who had argued bitterly with the victim the previous day in full view of the children. With limited criminal law experience, Kate finds herself enmeshed in a family fractured by doubt. Randall's teenage son is intent on killing him. His daughter wants only to feel safe again. And the entire legal community would like nothing better than to see Randall receive a public comeuppance. As Kate races to stay a step ahead of the prosecution, a silent predator is waiting for the perfect time to deal the final blow.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

This is Pamela Callow's second book, and the second book in the Kate Lange series. Now, reading the first book isn't a must, but I do recommend it so that you'll have a bit of an understanding for the characters from the get-go; it'll also help in understanding references from the first book. So if that kind of information is important to you, then I suggest reading the first book.

One of the things I'll state right off the bat is that this is a Top Read and is a big improvement over Pamela's first book, DAMAGED, which was a Four Rose Read. A lot of the complaints I had about the first book were corrected in this one. My major complaint for DAMAGED was character development, but for INDEFENSIBLE that was one of my favorite things. You get a much better feel for Kate and a lot of the minor characters. To me, Pamela's character portrayal has increased in leaps and bounds. I found myself actually tearing up at parts, because of what some of the characters had to go through.  Another thing I really loved was that the mystery was just as good this time as it was last time, if not better. The book has a twist ending that most readers will not see coming in a million years. With all the cliched mystery books lately, that is a very refreshing change of pace.

The romance also got better in this book, although it's still not as good as it could be. To me, it still feels a little off. Besides the romance, the pacing of the book was just a little too slow for my taste. I was also a bit annoyed with all the point-of-view changes. I wouldn't have minded it so much if it wasn't for the fact the POV changed as soon as I got used to the current POV. Also, I had a bit of an issue with the ending stretching the boundary of reality that much. 

Still, I really enjoyed the book and was pleasantly surprised by the improvements in Pamela's writing in the short amount of time since her first book. This is definitely a mystery series to keep an eye on. I recommend INDEFENSIBLE to all mystery and thriller fans.

Caitlin Turner